


Two Roads Diverged

by obstinatrix



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:52:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a cross roads</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Roads Diverged

"Well, my dear doctor," said Sherlock Holmes, "it seems we find ourselves at a cross-roads."

I had not heard his footsteps on the stair. All these years together, that familiar tread and the stair that creaked even under Holmes's catlike step, and I had been too embroiled in my nefarious pursuits to hear him, now at this most crucial of moments.

I froze. His voice was at my ear, behind my chair, and I knew that he saw the letter in my hand. The letter I had taken from his private collection -- oh, all unknowing at first, but I ought to have replaced it at once upon realising my mistake. Weakness had driven me instead to read on, and wonderment at such strange sentiments in that well-beloved hand: love and desire and my dear dear Trevor.

I had broken his confidence. I felt the blood leave my face at the sensation of his hand on my shoulder. If he were to turn me out -- the thought was more than I could bear. After having clawed him back from the jaws of Death itself, the idea of losing him to a breach of trust was unthinkable.

"Holmes," I began, "I -"

"I do not wish to hear it, doctor," said Holmes heavily. I felt my heart sink further.

"Holmes, my dear fellow -- I know I ought not to have read your private correspondence, and you have my sincere apologies --"

Holmes cut me off with a short laugh. "Aye, and your sympathies to boot, no doubt, after what you found there. No, Watson; you should not have been reading my personal correspondence, but the thing is done now." Of a sudden, all the strength dropped out of his voice, and he collapsed into his habitual chair. "I don't suppose I could prevail upon you, out of respect for our long years of friendship, not to go to the police?"

"The police?" For a moment, I blinked at him, uncomprehending. Then, all at once, the penny dropped. Here was I, petrified of his ire at my behaviour, and all the while, he... "My dear fellow, I have no intention of going to the police."

The corner of Holmes's mouth twitched wearily. "I see. Well. I am grateful. If it assuages your duty-bound guilt at all, I may tell you that I have not given in to the demands of my...condition...for some time." He smiled, but it was a thin shred of a thing. "My tastes became unhappily...fixed."

I took a deep breath. In truth, that Holmes had taken a male lover in his youth surprised me far less than that he had taken a lover at all. In my years at school and in the army, I had enjoyed my fair share of horseplay with other men, and as a doctor, I found nothing unhealthy in it, much as current medical wisdom disagreed with me. Indeed, I found men -- some men in particular -- just as appealing as ladies.

"Holmes," I said, very firmly, " my only concern was that you would not forgive me my breach of trust. The fact that you are -- if you are -- an invert..."

Holmes flinched. "Go on."

On an impulse, I leaned forward and places my hand over his. "Holmes, I have no interest in other people's sexual adventures, so long as all parties are in agreement. Do you really think a man could survive public school and the army, and never be made an offer?"

Holmes looked up at me. His expression was sharp, but his grey eyes were wary, uncertain. Hopeful. "I had thought you would leave me immediately, if you knew."

A flush of pity and love rushed through me. I clasped his hand tighter, and declared, "Holmes, I want to be nowhere on earth more than here." I paused, weighing up the odds, and then said, feeling that bridges were there to be burned, "With you."

To my utmost dismay, he pulled his hand from mine immediately and turned his face away. "Watson, I know you mean to be kind, but please, refrain. I cannot bear it."

Realisation struck me like a blow. I took a deep breath..."Holmes, when you said..."

"No!" He cut me off sharply, and stood. "Watson, I pray you, I am thankful for your discretion, but I cannot, I must not stay here tonight."

I am a man of action. I had, I decided, exhausted my vocal talents; standing, I drew him towards me by the wrists and looked fiercely into his face. "On the contrary, my dear Holmes," I said hoarsely, "if I understand you correctly, then you surely must. If you leave, how am I then to show you..." I leaned in, felt the ripple of his long throat at the touch of my warm breath upon it, and took courage -- "how very much I wish to be at Baker Street, with you?"

He lifted his head. Never before had I seen such an expression of openness in those grey eyes as I saw now, in the moment before I cupped his jaw and gently, gently kissed him.

My admiration for Sherlock Holmes -- his intellect, his grace, his finely cut features and his form as slender and upright as a blade -- was not new in coming. Indeed, I had felt the familiar frissons of attraction to him the very month we began to live together. But as the years passed, it seemed clear to me that he had no interest in sexual activity of any sort , nor in matters of the heart, and so I had bid my own heart be quiet, and remained happy just to orbit his star.

Still, I had imagined this moment. I am weak. I had pictured it, debated it, and still never quite reached this tableau in which his wiry arms were hesitant around my shoulders, his mouth yielding softly to my own. At first, he merely stood still and let me kiss him, and I feared I had miscalculated. But then, from his throat, came a weak sound of longing -- longing, from Sherlock Holmes, for _me_.

I am afraid to say I rather fell upon him. That sound, and what it connoted, was more than I could take. I breathed his name against his mouth in the moment before I crushed him to my breast, taking the back of his sleek dark head fully in my palm. He was a little taller than I, but less broad, and I found I was able to draw him easily into my embrace.

In my dreams, I had imagined him inexpert, fumbling, the blushing virgin succumbing to my persuasions. As he clung to me, I felt that he was trembling, and that shiver in his narrow frame fed the fantasy for a moment, all until his mouth opened and his tongue crooked out to rub against my own. There was nothing inexpert about that kiss, not once he had overcome his surprise and found his stride, oh no. His jaw went wide against mine almost immediately, the kiss becoming something wet and obscene and long-awaited, and before I could draw breath, he had borne me back onto the nearest horizontal surface -- which happened, in this case, to be the ottoman. 

"Watson," he hissed against the column of my throat. His breath was hot and his teeth, a moment later, were sharp. I tipped back my head and let him eat at me; indeed, I would have let him do with me whatever he wished, so long as I could revel in the feeling of cradling him like this, his weight in my lap and his cockstand -- God -- hot and certain against my abdomen as he ground down against me. 

Holmes was no virgin, and I knew in the moment that he began to rut against me in earnest that I preferred it this way. Holmes and inefficiency did not go hand in hand. To be with Holmes was to be pinioned like a specimen, the focus of his full attention and expertise; the sensation filled one with completion, and it was like that now, as he took my face in his two hands and began to kiss me ruthlessly, his tongue tracing my molars, licking to the back of my mouth. All the while, his hips were working, pistoning against my own, and I fear that, full-grown man though I was, I could feel myself twitching against him in my trousers. 

"Holmes," I panted against his mouth, fingers digging into his flesh. There was no elegance here, no grace. It was a collision, as if the two of us had finally been catapulted head-on into each other, and it was maddening, catastrophic -- inexorable. He groaned acknowledgement into my mouth, or warning, and the next second, I felt his rhythm falter, his hips beginning to stutter. Then his teeth, nipping firmly at my lower lip, and his body erupted into spasms, convulsing against me. 

"God, John," he breathed, " _John_." 

God, how I had longed to hear my name said that way -- my common, pedestrian name sounding sacred in his mouth at the point of his little death. Hearing it now, feeling his wet heat in his trousers, seeping through the fabric, there was nothing I could do save join him, seizing his hips to haul him down against me as I pressed myself into his body. 

"My dear Holmes," I murmured, stroking trembling fingers through his hair. "My dear...my dear." 

One day soon, we were to have each other fully -- have each other every which way. I would know his slender fingers gentling me, opening me, and I would know the heat of him inside, his body's tight embrace. We would be one flesh, in every way. 

That night, though, as I held him in my arms in our front room, I felt more than contented enough. We had reached a cross roads, and taken, I felt sure, the right road of the two together.


End file.
